


First Contact

by SouthernContinentSkies



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Bedside Vigils, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poison, Pre-Slash, Sick/Injured Character Slipping In And Out Of Lucidity While Important Information Must Be Shared, Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting, Time Period: Vorkosigan Regency, pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid, sick/hurt at formal social event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/pseuds/SouthernContinentSkies
Summary: Simon is used to the idea that he might die protecting someone else. After his sudden promotion to Chief of ImpSec, it takes a bit of a push for him to realize that he now also needs to protect himself.
Relationships: Simon Illyan/Aral Vorkosigan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 73
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	First Contact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/gifts).



The Blue Ballroom of the Imperial Residence was not crowded, but it was still overly full for Captain Simon Illyan’s professional comfort. The first official diplomatic event the Regent would be hosting in the aftermath of the Pretendership was newly underway, and it was critical that everything go smoothly. The new Tau Ceti Ambassador, and her staff, would doubtless be sharing their impressions with their colleagues, both at home and in other embassies. Presenting anything other than a good face would invite rumors of continued instability, and ultimately make Simon’s job that much more difficult - and it was hard enough already. 

Stepping into Negri’s shoes would have been daunting at any time, but the turmoil of the Pretendership had not been conducive to shaking them out with the promptness he would have preferred. He’d already sniffed out several internal personnel time bombs, metaphorically speaking, but the investigation into the worst of them had barely caught up to the assassin. Simon himself had had to intercept the glass of poisoned wine, meant for the Regent as a deadly aperitif, not half an hour ago - just before the first guests had been scheduled to arrive. 

To his very tempered relief, it hadn’t turned out to be a particularly devious plot. Even if they hadn’t already been tracking the culprit, someone would have been alerted in advance by the sheer oddity of a pre-poured glass of wine sitting by itself in the waiters’ staging area. Moreover, chemical analysis of the wine had shown a deadly but well-known toxin of Jacksonian origin, which was sufficiently on every Nexus security agency’s radar that Simon had his own personal stash of the antidote, in addition to the institutional supply. If, through some failure of every layer of security, the Regent had actually consumed the poison, treatment would have been more than swift enough to prevent any permanent damage.

Still, any assassination attempt was evidence of a problem, even the least competent. And the incompetence of this one suggested very strongly that ImpSec ought to have caught it much farther in advance. For that reason, in addition to his general baseline paranoia, Simon had delivered the glass to the techs personally, and was now heading up the on-site surveillance team himself. 

As he scanned the room, the chip automatically cataloging the various galactic and Barrayaran dignitaries, and supplying assorted biographical and security information, Simon’s heart skipped a beat. He froze, trying not to show any noticeable reaction. A minute passed, and then another, and he began to relax - and then it happened again. And a third time, only half a minute later. Arrhythmia, escalating: a poorly-timed manifestation of some medical condition, or a symptom of a secondary, undetected attack? Occam’s Razor suggested the first; Simon’s Barrayaran sensibilities screamed at him to prioritize the second. Luckily, the analysis didn’t really matter to his immediate response; regardless of the source, this was probably a medical emergency. He weighed the potential disruption of the Chief of ImpSec hurrying out of the room against that of the Chief of ImpSec collapsing suddenly in full view of a clutch of galactic diplomats, and suppressed a grimace. He began drifting towards the east doors, which led further into the Residence and were barred by guards from guest access, as nonchalantly as possible.

As he went, his hands and feet began to tingle. Arrhythmia with disruption of the peripheral nervous system: the chip began to throw up lists of matching causes. Natural medical conditions faded into the background behind contact poisons, and Simon cursed internally. He hadn’t touched anything dozens of other people hadn’t also touched, tonight - except, of course, that damned wine glass. He’d carried _that_ all the way down to the on-site testing lab on the second sub-level, and everyone else who’d handled it - including, presumably, the assassin - had been either a tech taking laboratory precautions, or a member of the waitstaff, with their formal white gloves.

He reached the door without incident, and the guards who waved him through either noticed nothing wrong, or were excellent at maintaining their professional implacability. On the other side, however, Simon could no longer be so controlled. The cardiac disruptions were getting worse, and the tingling was advancing up his legs, and threatening to progress to numbness. Simon put a hand on the wall to steady himself. Clearly he needed a medic, but the infirmary was on the other side of the building; if he sent an emergency alert, he was afraid the crash team would come straight through the reception, and defeat the purpose of his careful, and self-sacrificial, discretion.

Behind him, the door opened again. 

Simon tried to push himself upright, in some semblance of propriety, or at least of mere drunkenness. He doubted he was very convincing, but he had to try.

“Simon? Is something wrong?”

It was Vorkosigan. Simon made a face of frustration towards the wall. So much for avoiding disruption; the Regent would have had to hurry across most of the ballroom, to follow him so quickly.

“What are you doing back here?” he hissed over his shoulder. “The diplomats -” 

“Hang the diplomats,” Vorkosigan said fiercely. “Are you alright? What’s happened?”

Simon felt the tingling weakness progressing up his legs, and he stumbled towards the smaller, intersecting hallway in an increasingly futile bid to get out of sight before he collapsed.

Vorkosigan, intuiting his goal, dragged him around the corner - and then held him by his shoulders against the wall, in some combination of support, and preface to interrogation.

“Contact poison,” Simon forced out, before he could form the question. “Batrachotoxin, tetrodotoxin, epibatidine…” He rattled off the chip’s most likely suspects, as well as a summary of his symptoms, and the time since he had touched the suspect wine glass. He wasn’t sure how much of it Vorkosigan was making out; his tongue seemed heavier than usual, unresponsive, and his voice sounded removed and faint even to his own ears.

The toxin had moved into his central nervous system as well, by now, and was doing strange things to his brain. Simon’s vision switched between sharp chip-generated images and fuzzier organic ones, a strange duality that said nothing good about the poison’s potential effects on his mind. The only constant in this shifting visual landscape was Vorkosigan. He was in focus at the center of Simon’s view, as always, his expressive face increasingly alarmed at Simon’s rapidly deteriorating condition. He moved from pinning Simon to supporting him: one arm around his shoulders, the other moving to Simon’s neck to check his pulse. It was just in time; the nerves in Simon’s legs at last gave way, and the two of them slumped against the wall together. Simon could see Vorkosigan reaching for his wristcomm, speaking into it, but the words escaped him; his ears apparently no longer worked.

“Not through the ballroom,” Simon tried to say, but he didn’t think he managed. Nothing was responding anymore. His last thought, as his vision shrank to pinprick focus on Aral’s eyes, and went to black, was ImpSec’s warmest cold comfort: _at least they missed_ him.

  


* * *

To his surprise, he dreamed.

Strange, transient images, perspectives warped by unseen lenses, twirled through his mind like snippets of corrupted vids. He was lying on an operating table, an impossibly young Ezar Vorbarra looming over him to install a whirring gyroscope in his chest; he was running down the corridors of a twisted _General Vorlaikal_ , Ges Vorrutyer’s laughter at his heels, the door to Vorkosigan’s cabin always just out of reach; he was turning and turning in the widening gyre, a falcon without a falconer, climbing and climbing into the overbright sun; someone put a hand on his cheek, and he was a man again, alone in a white room, with only a mirror opposite him - but his reflection had grey eyes instead of brown, and after a moment of confusion, it was not a mirror at all, but a window, and Vorkosigan was on the other side. He was looking at Simon with that charismatic intensity that so defined him, and a type of heat that he had never directed at Simon in waking life, and even in his own dream, Simon found he couldn’t look away.

“Why?” Simon said, mouthless, to the mirror-that-wasn’t. “Why is it always you? You’re my commanding officer; you’re in love with your wife; you’re categorically untouchable. You did everything but shoot me to get me away from you, after Escobar. What is wrong with me?”

The man in the mirror said nothing, fading out of view. After a moment, Simon faded with him, and dissolved back into dreamless and more peaceful sleep.

* * *

  


Simon’s next clear image was of the ceiling of the Residence infirmary. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the morning sunlight, and to the clarity of reality after the jumble of his dreams. The chip did not record while he slept. On the rare occasions that he remembered his dreams, it was only with his deficient organic memory, and the relative fuzziness was disconcerting. He greatly preferred not to, especially when the overall effect was of some unwelcome push from his subconscious. Developing a crush on Aral Vorkosigan would be incredibly inadvisable even if he weren’t Simon’s boss, and his security charge. The only thing messier would be to develop a crush on the man’s wife - and though Simon respected the Regent Consort immensely, there was thankfully no chance of that. He raised a hand to his face to rub away the residual torpor, and though he managed it, he found himself disconcertingly weak.

Turning over, he saw on the bedside chrono that it was 0648; not late, but later than he usually woke. More importantly, the chair on the other side of the end table was occupied. Lord Vorkosigan was either doing a good impression of dozing off, or he really had fallen asleep there. Looking closer, Simon decided on the second option; Vorkosigan was still wearing some version of his red and blues. Most of the decorative insignia was gone, and the jacket looked to be draped over the back of the chair behind him, but the trousers and the shirt were unmistakable. As Simon watched, he stirred, lifting his head.

“Good morning, Simon,” Vorkosigan said, his voice rumbling up through the fog of sleep. “Glad to see you’re still with me.” His pronouncement did not have the ring of a joke.

“Were you here all night?” Simon asked, incredulous. “How did you sleep?” 

“I was. And not well.” Vorkosigan looked at him from under beetled brows. Remarkably, given the circumstances, his eyes were only marginally blearly, and much more penetrating than anyone’s deserved to be, at this hour.

“Why, for god’s sake?” Simon asked. “You live in the same building! You and the Regent Consort are less than a hundred yards from the infirmary; I measured. They could have woken you if there was a problem.”

Vorkosigan’s eyes narrowed, and he drew himself out of his reclining slouch to sit forward in the chair. “There was already a problem! That was an exceptionally nasty neurotoxin you put your hands on, Simon. You were touch and go for some time. I wasn’t about to leave you.”

“I was in the hands of some of the most qualified medical professionals on the planet,” said Simon, a bit stiffly, in the face of Vorkosigan’s intensity. “The Regent’s personal supervision is taking ‘horses first’ a bit far, isn’t it?”

Vorkosigan’s face changed very little, but he suddenly looked almost angry. “You are not a horse, Simon,” he said, with quiet vehemence. “You are my Chief of Security, and you are indispensable. To the Imperium, and to me. You are not allowed to die at the hands of some disaffected third-rate operative, and you’re certainly not allowed to consider that an acceptable result!”

“I’m a pretty poor Chief of ImpSec, if I can’t even spot such an obvious assassination plot,” Simon said, his face warming in a way he hoped was attributable to his incongruous feelings of comfort at this declaration, rather than some resurgent symptom. “Perhaps you’d better start combing through some of those third-rate operatives for someone who can protect you a bit better.”

Vorkosigan snorted. “It’s not myself I’m worried about, Simon. Look again, with both sets of eyes this time: this attempt wasn’t aimed at me.”

“What?” said Simon, and then, “Oh. Of _course_. Fuck. No wonder the glass was obvious.”

“Indeed.” Vorkosigan’s voice was dry. “I’m afraid you’ll have to acquire some additional self-esteem, to go with your new-again rank tabs, Captain. If your enemies think you’re valuable, it generally behooves you to agree with them.”

Simon sighed. “This is why ImpSec is supposed to be unobtrusive,” he said. “I didn’t take a nominal demotion just to have _more_ people come after me.”

“And how many plots a day did Negri have to deal with?”

“Lots,” Simon conceded. “But he had Grishnov playing games behind his back. It was supposed to be easier, now.”

“It was never going to be easy, Simon,” Vorkosigan said. “That’s why I picked you.” He looked out of the window for a moment, as if considering, before he turned back to Simon, the ghost of a wry smile gracing his mouth. “And for the record, shooting you was never on the table. At the very least, it would have entailed paperwork - which I’m sure you remember exactly how much I hate.”

Simon started, the phrase ringing a bell down into the deeper reaches of his mind. “You did everything but shoot me to get me away from you” - he’d said that to the mirror-Vorkosigan, in his dream. Had he been narrating in his sleep? Had the hand on his dreamland cheek been more real than he’d known? He shuffled back through his fading memories, cursing the organic inefficiency of his sleep-addled mind. What else had he said, exactly? He couldn’t remember. It must not have been a full declaration of feeling, at any rate; Vorkosigan didn’t look like a man whose subordinate had just subconsciously propositioned him. Perhaps the situation was still salvageable.

“Of course not, sir,” he said stiffly. “I never doubted you for a minute.”

“Of course you did,” Vorkosigan returned, the ghostly smile not leaving him. “All the best officers do.”

They regarded each other over the expanse of Simon’s white hospital coverlet. An extraordinary density of history stretched between them: two wars; weeks of living in each others’ pockets on Imperial order, both before and after Escobar; months of carefully-developing professionalism, since Ezar’s death; all in the span of only two years.

“If you weren’t going to shoot me,” Simon said slowly, carefully devoid of any appellation of rank, “I’d be curious to know what you did intend to do with me, in the depths of your… post-Escobar contortions.”

Vorkosigan regarded him steadily. “At the time, it would have been disastrous,” he said, ambiguously. “But now, it occurs to me that your joining me… would not have been the worst idea.”

Simon’s head came up, as much as it was able in his position. He met Vorkosigan’s gaze. He had a more recently-acquired appreciation of the man’s vices, as well as his virtues, that he had not had in the heat of events on the _General Vorlaikal_. He found the more complete picture of Vorkosigan the man - versus Vorkosigan, the hero or the villain - more enticing than off-putting, and even as weak as he was, the knowledge that his feelings were not entirely unrequited was seriously testing his professional resolve.

“This isn’t the time to address that, however,” Vorkosigan said, correctly interpreting at least some of Simon’s bed-bound body language. “You are absolutely not to go back on duty, _or do anything else strenuous_ , until the senior infirmary doctor clears you for it. You almost died last night, for god’s sake.”

“Fine,” said Simon, firmly. “But we’ll talk then.” 

“Of course,” Vorkosigan said gently, from the door. “I look forward to it, Simon.” 

“So do I - Aral.”

Simon’s last glimpse of the Lord Regent, before the door closed between them, was typically inscrutable - but Simon thought he saw, through the man’s various natural defenses, just a glimpse of an intrigued and thoughtful smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The names of the toxins Simon spouts off are real neurotoxins, at least some of which could definitely be used as contact poisons, but I’ve taken some liberties with the way their symptoms manifest. I needed something with a relatively slow burn for plot reasons, and there don’t seem to be any contact poisons that are slow burn for real. So, don’t use fanfic for your, uh, poisons research. That’d be weird.


End file.
